Emile was not always Emile. She was born Crimson LeBlanc, child of an infamous raider in the Mana Wastes. A monstrous child without empathy or patience, she aided horrific raids on villages, caravans, and lone wanderers alike. She left her own mother to die, practiced cannibalism, and regularly tore things apart just to look at their pulsating insides. When she was old enough, she slept, hacked, and shot her way to third-in-command of the Glorious Shades, a roving clan of bandits.
She enjoyed her life... until a dark storm full of manic energy came over her camp one night after a particularly monstrous attack on a rival gang. It swept over her and forced her to endure all the tortures she had ever placed on others while demanding obscene sacrifices and warping her flesh. It was supposed to make her insane, she would later come to guess, but instead it forced her to experience guilt, horror, and empathy in equal measure, and she was afraid. This was just as well, as it had turned her accomplices into howling demons (both jawed and unjawed) that slavered and chased after her until daylight gave them pause and they just stood there, button-laced eyes glinting as dust gathered into their exposed ribcages.
The nerve of some people.
She decided to start a new life then and there. With only the clothes on her back she stole into the nearest settlement, Hope's Hollow, and apprenticed herself to the local apothecary (though he took some convincing). She holds herself as an amnesiac, and lied about being an afflicted adventurer. She wants to make up for what she's done in the past, and has kept a low profile for two years, doing good where she can, but she's too much of a coward to actually admit anything. In fact, there are times she even believes her own story.
Then more visions come, and the bugs squirm just underneath her skin, and she remembers.
She needs to do something truly heroic to stop loathing her own existence, justified as that hatred is.